When You Can Dance In the Dying

We were driving down the highway, sun filtering through glass, looking deep into leaves putting on their beautied best, and dancing warm in sunlight.

We're looking, longing for...light and beauty to filter into eye and soul and penetrate from tree to me, and golden silence hanging.

And then, I hear it, "These trees, they are beautiful, right?  But they do this, they change colors because...because they're dying?"

"I mean, God, He planned it this way, they only become beautiful when they are dying?"

And why is it so true?

That this, all this glory, is only seen in the dying.

And I think of all the losses we've had, all the people who have gone on to Heaven these past two years, and I see it, this glory. 

This reminding that it's only through death that we can finally enter life.

This beauty in death that is seen only in Christ. 

And this death becoming life, and beauty.

And Jesus said,"Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone.  But death will produce a harvest of many new kernels - a plentiful harvest of of new lives.  Those who love their life in this world will lose it.  Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity."

So, it's only in this dying that we really ever prosper.

It's only in this dying that we ever bear fruit.

And isn't that so like being a mother.

Mothers making space in their souls and wombs to bring forth new life, a piece of them dying each time.  And in this laying down of a life, new lives a birthed.  Is there ever any other way?

And these fall trees wearing grave clothes of splendor, dancing to the funeral song sung in October breezes, they know that it's only death that makes way for new life.

And they embrace it.

How long have I shunned it, rejected this path of dying, of losing one's self?

How long have I seen only darkly through the glass, instead of glimpsing glory and swaying to the music-beauty of the dying?

And how can I see clearly instead of darkly?

In the crying of babies, and children fighting over toys, mountains of laundry, soaking dirty diapers, and three meals a day, can I dance to this song of the dying?

Can I behold beauty in this death, and see and trust that this seed of my life is going into the ground but this is not the end, only the beginning.

And trust that this God who brings life to things dead, will also bring life from this death, this death of dreams and plans and expectations.

Because it's only after the seed has died and been covered with dirt, that the miracle happens.

And somewhere deep inside the ground, where no eye can see this transformation, a tiny sprout bursts forth from this dead seed. 

And death gives birth to life.

In this daily struggle for true sight, I catch glimpses of this glory, and God, this God who alone gives life to the dead, who himself conquered death to bring us life and immortality, and for a moment, I can dance.

Dance despite piles of dirty laundry, and dishes, and schoolbooks and yelling kids, and this is true grace, to trust,

and even in the dying, to dance.